Consistency in Poker with isnortbooze

Consistency is Key
The one thing that truly separates a good athlete from a great athlete is consistency. Anyone can have a hot game, but the legends are out there putting up big numbers night after night. They may not always win, but they put their maximum effort into every performance. You see where I'm going with this. Poker. There is no easy path to the top anymore and it gets more and more difficult every year, as people get more educated about the game by articles such as this. It takes much more time to move up levels than it did 10 years ago. To be honest, if I had started playing poker in the last few years, I'm not sure I would have had the fortitude to stay in the game. If you started playing poker in the last few years and are still grinding away the low-mid stakes, while building a bankroll and studying to get better good for you! It is not easy to stick with this game, and learning to master it can often be very expensive. But once you do, it can be very profitable.

Preparation
However, just like with athletes, you can memorize every play in the book, but when it comes to the high-pressure situations, only the superstars will perform at the highest levels. With poker it is even harder, due to the effect that gambling has on the human brain. The number one thing that stands in the way of people's consistency is trying to get back money they lost. In the long run, a skillful player will cash 15-20% of his tournaments. That percentage will stay the same (or even go down) if he moves up to a higher buy-in level. So, as he keeps buying in for more and more with the odds hugely stacked against him that he will cash, his bankroll gets exponentially smaller until it is gone. This is extremely common. Most good players can't keep from going broke this way. The few good players who can, are losing 80-85% of the time but make up for it by putting up some big numbers along the way. These are the ones who become elite.

Studying the Game
Studying your game is another huge part of it. It is hard to admit your faults. Sometimes, I get nervous, even to review my session by myself, because I am embarrassed by a mistake I made. It happens. Suck it up. And don't just review your hands by yourself. Have a friend review with you. Let him tell you what a huge mistake you made. It's fine. When you are complaining about getting sucked out on, it is good to have someone to tell you that there were other ways to play the hand. That is how you improve. If you want to be on top, you might as well start preparing yourself now for the criticism. I am certainly not on top, but I am in the public view and people criticize my game all the time. It makes me super self-conscious. But many times, they are right. And once I get over myself, I learn something. Why not listen to every available piece of information I can? Group review sessions are how almost all the big-name players got to where they are.

Mistakes Will Happen
People mistake online poker for an easy way to make a buck, because we are sitting down and at home. Being a winning player is very, very hard and the higher you go, it gets that much harder. That, compiled with the fact that even a winning player may lose for months at a time, shows why so few players are able to make a living at this game. The ones that do are the ones who can bring their A-game no matter what the circumstances. Don't play when you are tilted. Don't play when you are angry. Don't play when you are drunk. What? I know, right? Forget about your results. Play your hands correctly. The ones you don't play correctly, adjust for next time. Most people know the correct way to act disciplined, but still don't do it. Do whatever it takes. Burn your hand on the stove every time you don't stick to correct bankroll management. (Betcoin does not condone hand burning or any other form of self-harm.) Do what you need to do to get the job done. Think to yourself, am I going to regret this tomorrow? Take 5 minutes to separate yourself from the situation and truly decide what is best for you in the long term. If you put in the work, you will see the results. Good luck!

250 Thank You Tickets
I am giving away three 250 Guaranteed Freeroll tickets to people who comment below. What could you do to become more consistent? Entries must be received by Wednesday at 9AM EST to qualify. Winning entries will also be entered in the last longer for the following Sunday's Tipsy Chips.
Good luck!
Booze

"Success doesn’t come from what you do occasionally, it comes from what you do consistently". I must agree that you article is great, its how we should play poker all the time. But its not easy to apply all this while we play the game.
To keep it short and simple, what should we do to become more consistent?
For sure first thing is following couple pro players, watching their games and listening their explanations.
Step two is play, play, play the poker game as much as you can and try to apply all learned. Its not easy as it sounds for sure, but only with practice someone can become perfect.

For me only thing what drops me off my game is tilt. I sometimes cannot control myself when I have a donk where I want him, but he somehow manages to pull that rabbit out of his hat with help from the deck. But tilt level is lower when I am playing higher BI tournaments. In ring games I do not tilt or flinch even if nose starts bleeding. So what should I do? Get massive BR to start already at high BI MTTs? Or just keep on tiltin the lower ones? I am determined to keep on doing what I am doing and maybe the tilt will fade away with time. At least majority of it.

Double T, you have to accept that you are going to lose almost every tournament. Everyone will. A huge part of this reason is suckouts. Most decent or better players lose most tournaments to a suckout. The great ones continue to play their best and make sure their wins are large enough to overcome all the losses. It is very hard to be a winning tournament player.
If your tilt level is lower when you play higher buyins, that means you are not going into the lower buyin tournaments with your best possible game. I would recommend instead of moving up, focus on always playing your best at the lower buyins all the time first. Remember that you should have a bankroll of at least 75-100 buyins for whatever level you are playing.
Good luck!
Booze

i can suggest to play some where the fields are not big, or maybe get into sniping small 50 cent and 1 dollar r/a
find that one you like and play it! and let that be your fun lower buyin mtt, that gets you happy to be playing and gets you in a good mood :D
my fav new tourney is the 50 cent plo8 r/a and i even got tilted from it last night. but is fine, ill be back to win some more another try!

no matter what you play (size of buyin) you are almost always going to find that one or a few, who just play terrible and the river gets it there for them.

when you see someone that terrible. go look up their sharkscope and see how terrible they are :P i promise alot of them are negative by a ton

Another great article by mr booze. If poker doesn't work out then you can definitely start a career in writing.

I think you already mentioned the main things about becoming a consistent winner.

I think the one thing that people dismiss is the need for a pro poker buddy. Most of the big names had a help from other pro player/s. Think of Tom Dwan and Phil Galfond, Phil Ivey and Barry Greenstein, etc. “If you want to go fast, go alone. If you want to go far, go together.”

The other thing is finding your game. Only very few players are great at every poker variation. I think you have to choose your niche game. For example Doug Polk was a break-even full ring player, but when he decided to switch to heads-up then he quickly became one of the best at it.

"In late 2009, I started playing heads-up poker," he said, "and I immediately went from playing $2/$4 to playing $50/$100 several months later. Heads-up poker came very natural to me, and I was started to build my legacy."

I know I don't spend enough time reviewing hands, because the cringe is real. I also don't have much time to study the game, so I don't improve as fast as I would like to. I will have more free time next year, so I'm planning to really study GTO type of poker.

i think with BRM is where i need to learn to stay consistent, with my play, i am like doublet and i wind up getting pissed and donking off alot :P

i am at ITM%: 15.2% which could be alot better for how i play, but not too terrible i guess

this is the number i want to work on and get more final tables Late Finishes (10%): 8.1% (atleast i think that is what late finishes is haha)

this right here you said,
"Don't play when you are tilted. Don't play when you are angry. Don't play when you are drunk. What? I know, right? Forget about your results. Play your hands correctly. The ones you don't play correctly, adjust for next time. Most people know the correct way to act disciplined, but still don't do it."

can not say it better myself! besides the playing drunk thing, cuz that is when i like to play, but i do get tilted easy when drunk sometimes, so proves why it is bad!

Nice post booze,i think everyone will also agree that consistency is key but it is very hard to implement it.
SPRAGGY is one of top poker twitch streamer that i look up to in terms of consistency, and i hope i can adapt his playing style and method asap by learning from him. He turned his 100 dollar bankroll to 20k usd atm ( true story!!) by streaming every single day without fail for the past 6-7 months? holy shit?! one thing im more impress tho is him sticking to bankroll management, which i think most of us cant do in ring games as well as tournament, as well as me.. right now hes still playing 50 dollar max and also 10 dollar tournaments, from what i see by watching his stream this few months, no matter how much his bankroll grows. This i say is true consistency of poker grinding that is needed in today"s poker in order to succeed. Most people including me tends to move up the stakes too quickly when they initially win a tournament because they think they could win more in those stakes, and this results them in losing their bankroll quickly... one of a interesting poker story i hear today is a low stakes poker grinder that satellite into the sunday million and win it for 150k or so, went on to play 5k hyper hu turbo session and lost it all.. thats what being inconsistent results to...

Therefore, poker players should really be consistent if they want to succeed , and if ur still losing money after sticking to brm and being consistent , than maybe poker is not for u and its time to move on to something else or play it just as a hobby, also important not to let TILT get to u as it is a freaking killer lol

Tilting is what prevents me from being consistent, I lose a pot with a hand with great equity I tilt and usually all in with the next hand which is usually pretty shit and someone calls me down and that's the end of play time.

It's very difficult to be consistent especially in lower stakes where its pretty much the lottery people going all in over and over hoping to get lucky and win a nice stack.
I try to be consistent by using bankroll management to avoid just putting my whole bankroll into a tournament which i most likely will not cash in. And as I eventually grow my stack by cashing in tournaments every so often I will higher my stakes.

Consistency, preparation and to a lesser extent studying only really matters when you're already a winning player (when playing your A game) which most people aren't by definition. Working on your mental game is important if you're atleast a breakeven or better player as it could be the difference between a breakeven player and a winner. Assuming you are a winning player getting consistent is a matter of a few things, having a strong mental game, having the same amount of rest, playing the same time everyday, taking breaks when tired, quitting when tired.

However, nobody is a robot and can be super consistent so a good fallback plan is to be able to play your B game on autopilot so that when you inevitably stop playing your A game you're not losing too much if your "baseline" is better than other people's "baseline".

this is correct. here's some numbers on actual advantages in two card three flop poker --

(2.857142857142857)
(2.105236157894737)

Edges are very small.

As a pattern oriented person my baseline "HAH" comes from a certain point in space and time that is aligned mood and/or overall flow. When I feel this, I proceed. I am able to sustain this feeling with discipline from sound induced reminders that connect in my brain to motivation. It isn't perfect, but haha yeah it works.

liking your words of succession above******BUT must like my words for success below.
playing strive & waiting for good cards is absolutely great habit & consistency for poker succession..
that's not just a words for saying but i got some chips by using that particular step ...and enjoy life with ice cream and sip of coffee..best post bozze.

I think the number one thing would be to have a learning-oriented attitude. This is where no matter what happens one is ALWAYS CURIOUS about what he can learn from it, be it a major bad beat, a stupid mistake, a losing streak, an undeserved pot, etc. In his book Mastery, Aikido blackbelt George Leonard points towards the learning attitude as the key to becoming a master. He mentions that in his deathbed, Judo founder Jigaro Kano told his students to bury him in his white belt. He did this to impress upon them the importance of always being a "white belt" in one's attitude towards one's craft. A white belt, as you know, is a beginner. It is always important to maintain the curiousity of a beginner even when one is already experienced.

Outstanding poker players think that there is still so much to know. Poor players think that they already know.

I'm currently developing a mathematical thought process and working on breaking some of my hard wired habits. Thought patterns can be mitigated with instantaneous or pre-existing awareness of the occurance and a tough twist away from the point. For example, I see my hand is 59hh. This is almost always a fold unless it's short handed, however, I am practicing thinking about it more. Should I call? If I do, how do I react? What about the subtle feelings of ackwardness over alter semantics? How am I reacting to my emotions? Are my emotions real or bandaged? That somewhat euphoric coke-esque feeling when the cards fall DOES NOT GO AWAY... but knowledge of it can lead to cutting it off quickly or turning (or not) quickly to the situation. My math process is showing a lot of promise and I am really excited to apply it to Omaha and see what I can learn about the game.

Great article this is one i need to be more of to improve my game is consistent. I have a hard time with patience and start playing everyhand and lose chip after chip. I personally need to be more consistent and play only premium hands and also have to learn to get rid of aces on bad boards. My consistencies need to improve big time good article boozey.

I need to learn the art of bankroll management and discipline to always play my best. I play mostly tournaments so losing focus, even for a short period, can be very costly. I'm gonna try burning my hand. I will report if it's ev+ move.

Follow me to keep consistency in poker you need to train with patience in everything. Always keep the goal attainable, stop playing as soon as you feel insufficient to continue. Control your thoughts and actions not to externally impact.

Yes....And online poker is even more competitive than live poker. Contemporary players entering the online poker community have the disadvantage of having to learn the accompanying software, learning the ins and outs of their banking options, and battling those who've already been working on a GTO that utilizes the ever faster paced advancements in technology. It might take some time for a new player to realize that his table is being filled by "bum hunters" and even longer for him to figure out how they find him so quickly.

As search for an optimal poker strategy is advancing and software is being developed to take advantage of those strategies, it becomes more and more difficult to enter the field at a competitive level.....articles like this help level that playing field.

However, poker is a game where "protecting your hand" is an asset, the best kept strategies are only exposed in private and usually at high cost....acquiring good poker coaching pays off.....we're getting some free coaching here with these tips from booze.....pay attention.

you could always hire a coach and keep the basics with you no matter what you feel follow the guidelines he gave you for hands to fold, play,play pre bet raise, also BRM (bankroll management) is so seriously important if you do it correct by the time you master the low stakes you will be or most likely be a consistant winner in some games you favor. say you play 1000x tournaments/sit n gos by the time you play that many games you should find your consistant winning positive ROI % FOR WHATEVER GAME YOU FAVOR.
JUST FOLLOW THE GUILDLINES AND PAY ATTENTION TO YOUR PLAYERS AT YOUR TABLES. ALWAYS WATCH EVEN IF U THINK IT IS USELESS SINCE YOU CANT SEE PPL BUT YOU CAN ABSOLUTELY READ PLAYERS. MAKE NOTES ON THEM PLAYERS THAT WILL HELP WITH CONSISTANT WINS AGAINST THEM PLLAYERS ALSO..
OK i hope this helps someone enough to do hours of research and watching certain players even when you are not playing a game just find ppl who frequent your favorite games and watch them without them knowing see how they play and it helps very well. thank you for your time if you reading this. sorry if it might be confusing but i am trying my best.

and as for the thank you freeroll ticvkets if i am selected isnortbooze i have 2 tickets un-used already i dont need new ticket but would like to join the challenge please if selected.
thank you